Our second journey with the family included another very important place, Dad's hometown Hamedan. This time Mom, Dad, Kia, Nima, and I piled into a bigger vehicle with our somewhat wild driver Reza and headed southwest. The drive was beautiful with desert and mountain intermixed with a more lush terrain. After a quick detour for lunch we entered the 7 km-deep Ali Sadr cave. The story goes that it was discovered by a Shepard who in the driest desert would see his goats come back at the end of the day with a wet chin. He followed them one day and saw the cave with a glorious fresh crystal clear river carving a passage through the rock. We boarded a small river boat, still the only mode of transportation, and floated by the rock formations in the cool darkness of the cave. On the road again towards Hamedan we passed through the small town where Dad was born.Hamedan, nestled amongst the snow-capped Zagros Mountains, lies at about 1500 km above sea level.
We drove straight to one of the mountains at the edge of town to see the Ganjnameh. The Ganjnameh can be likened to the Rosetta Stone, a translation of the ancient Persian language that allowed archaeologists to decipher it and mysteries of Persepolis. Set next to a lovely waterfall where the snow line ends, it was Xerxes' tribute to his empire and to his forefathers. Dad told us that they used to walk several km from the town to camp in this place and that the road had only been built since he left Iran. At the Ganjnameh Dad’s second cousin and his family (none of whom he had never met) found us. Agha Afshar, Khanum Mariam, and their children are beautiful people. Not only did they share their home with us but they showed us that “distant” family does not mean anything. It is all just family. Khanum Mariam is a spectacular cook (one of the three masters Nima referred to) who adds a bit of a personal and a Kurdish twist to her Persian dishes. Agha Afshar entertained us with his hearty laughter and his amazing voice as he sang Kurdish, Turkish, and Farsi folksongs. Their son Shahin showed us all around town - poet’s tombs, the tomb of the famous Persian physician Avicenna (whose textbook was the standard in Europe into the 18th century), and Dad’s old family home. We found his home replaced by an apartment building. We were having a great time with this family and could hardly get ourselves to leave for our next destination Esfahan, but in the end we stuck with our plans.
The treacherous ride to Esfahan took us through a severe rainstorm in the dark with our crazy speeding driver Reza. If it weren’t for the great company and the spectacular lightening storm we might have wanted to turn back around. But when we arrived in Esfahan back at Khaleh Zohreh’s apartment we felt a comfortable familiarity settle in. Our three days in Esfahan were our most intensive in terms of sightseeing in Iran. There was so much to see and take in but here are some of the highlights: the Jameh Mosque with its subdued timeless sandstone walls, the shaking minarets (shaking one causes the other to shake as well but no one has quite figured out how), the Abbasi Hotel with its gorgeous garden courtyard and amazing Ash Reshteh (a soup), the beautiful mosques and palaces of Naqsh-e-Jahan with their exquisitely tiled portals and mathematically perfect domes. There were many more sites and each of us had our favorite. But the fabled beauty of Esfahan is only partially captured by these sites. The city is an oasis of green with tree-lined boulevards set in the desert. Its classical Persian architecture is typified in the stunning Naqsh-e-Jahan square with its endless white archways interrupted by two brilliant blue mosques. Sitting at a teahouse drinking chai, smoking galyoon, overlooking the square allowed us to take in the families picnicking on the lawn and the schoolgirls holding hands and spinning in circles. 
Our evenings were spent along the river at the bridges. We were especially drawn to famous Si-o-Se Pol, a pedestrian-only 33-arch bridge lit in golden colors and a beautiful place to watch the sunset and wind down. Afterwards we always had a good dinner at home before preparing for the next day's sites. In many of the places we visited we attracted the attention of high school girls all expressing their love of Indian movies and curious about who we were and what we thought of Iran. At the Chehel Sotun Palace, Dad and Kia searched for Nima and me (always slower with seeing sites) and they found us amidst about 20 girls all in blue uniforms giggling as they asked us ho we met and when we got married. They wanted to be doctors and engineers and artists. 
One wanted to be a Bollywood film star. Our time in Esfahan was too short but I imagine that it is a place we will return to over and over again. Our return trip to Tehran was relatively straightforward. We had the opportunity to stop in Qom to visit the graves of Nima’s paternal grandparents. I wish I’d had the chance to meet them.
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